From Scattered to Centered: Reclaiming the Focus of the Soul

Rabbi Uri Zohar- formerly one of Israel’s most famous entertainers- was once asked "Why don’t you do Orthodox Jewish entertainment? What’s the problem with creating kosher entertainment?”

He answered: “Entertainment,” in Aramaic, comes from the root meaning “to scatter”. To entertain is to scatter. A person comes home from work, tired and preoccupied, and now seeks ‘entertainment’- a scattering of the soul. But I don’t want to scatter the soul,” he said. “On the contrary, I want to help a person focus the soul. I would rather they return home and immerse themselves in holy study, in the Gemara, instead of becoming scattered. It’s a completely opposite direction! Instead of relaxing and scattering, I want to help people focus and concentrate.”

Of course there is a place for relaxation, but to what extent do we want that scattering (entertainment) to become the central part of our lives?

Scattering of the soul is one of the key issues that keeps us from living in the now. When our soul is scattered, it’s difficult to focus and to complete tasks, and we often end up doing things we later regret such as mindless wandering through digital spaces, unnecessary eating, engaging in things irrelevant to our purpose, or worse. A scattered soul is unable to see the goal- everything becomes unclear, shrouded in fog. We have no patience to wait for the real fulfillment we seek, so instead, we "snack" on cheap substitutes.

A young man in his mid-thirties once met with me. “This year, I want to get married,” he declared. “So what’s stopping you?” I asked.
He said he had no idea! And indeed, he was a wonderful guy. It turned out that he almost got married once, but backed out at the last minute. Since then, he couldn’t let go of the thought: “What would have happened if I had married her?” Because he hadn’t fully closed that door, he wasn’t allowing himself to open a new one. He knew he wasn’t going to marry her, but he still couldn’t let go.

“You know what that’s like?” I asked him. “Like a man who reserves a table at a fancy restaurant with a good friend for 7 p.m. A little earlier he goes for a walk around the neighborhood and ends up in a corner shop eating bags of snacks. They taste great, but before long he feels satisfied. When his friend calls at 6 to confirm the dinner, he’s practically begging him to cancel the reservation.”

What happened here? He snacked along the way. Instead of saving himself for the main meal, he wasted his appetite on Bamba and Bisli. How many times does this happen to us in life?

The wonderful guy understood the parable, and cut off all unnecessary communication and let go of the unhelpful thoughts. He felt lonely. He felt pain. He felt a great void. But that same year, he got married.

To focus the soul, we must close our eyes to distractions or whatever is interfering with our clarity. When a person tries to see something far away, there may be many things along the path that distract and confuse him. Also, distance weakens our ability to see clearly.

The solution is to narrow your gaze- squint your eyes. Doing this helps ignore the distractions and see on the goal.

When we want to look toward our purpose and focus clearly on what we truly want, we must do two things:

1. Ignore the background noise and distractions- like the young man who needed to stop snacking on Bamba and Bisli- to stop keeping faint hopes and past dreams alive if they’re not leading him to his goal.

2. Stay focused on what we really want. When we want something badly, we may need to remind ourselves and take the steps that lead us to our goal.

When a person focuses, and doesn’t get lost in soul-scattering distractions, they can truly quench their thirst at the source. They can reach what they deeply hoped for, and desired.

From Ran Weber's new book, "Living the Day". To purchase, visit Hidabroot Shop or call: 073-222-125